Long John wrote:We can't very well condemn regulation and at the same time complain about those who take advantage of a lawless environment. If we don't want government to clamp down, as is happening in China and the SEC is trying to do as well, what are we doing to police ourselves?

This is exactly right! People talk about wanting free markets, until they start losing big money. Then all of a sudden it's "where is my bailout" or "where is my refund, I'm suing" mantra. Crypto is for those with big boy pants. There will be no bailouts, no refunds, nobody to sue when your trade goes south, nobody to blame when you lose your private keys. People have such a false sense of protection with the SEC, FDIC insurance, CFTC, and on and on, and then they can't believe we have all these bubbles, created by the very entities that are supposedly around to protect us (FED).

So there will likely be regulations coming, mostly because governments want their slice of the taxes as always, not because they care about the little guy investor on Main Street. Hopefully these regulations will be minimal, in order to prevent fraud, and legitimize ICOs and crypto in general. Because crypto is global, if one country cracks down, another will be much more friendly, and investment will go there.

My preference would be no regulations whatsoever though. Investors will soon learn after losing money on one scam ICO, to do more research next time, not fall for the whitepaper and hype, and maybe lose less money next time. If not, they will lose money again in the next investment. This will continue to happen until people either stop investing altogether, or wise up. Forcing ICO companies to have some sort of working product would be a great start, but as the market stands now, it isn't necessary for the largely hyped ICOs. Change is coming though.

SilverDoge wrote:Almost every person who is into crypto now was a crypto skeptic first. Not many people read about crypto and say, I get it all, it makes perfect sense, and how can I invest immediately. The learning curve is steep, especially now that we have all these alt-coins. When I got into crypto it was really only bitcoin with a few others like litecoin, dogecoin, feathercoin and such starting their way - but nobody took them seriously anyway. It was all about bitcoin.

A recent ZH article describing billionaire investor Howard Marks opening up his skepticism to bitcoin (whereas he previously called it a fad & pyramid scheme).

This is how it goes. People who are uneducated on the mechanisms, principles, network, and utility of bitcoin and cryptos write them off because they don't understand it, and it takes a bit of real work to wrap your head around it all at this early stage of the game. But after Howard had friends in the know, sit him down and explain everything he has changed his song. Not enough to actually buy (yet), but enough to consider it.

Towards the end of his memo to investors, he ends with issues we've already discussed: volatility, the other numerous competing cryptos, is bitcoin an asset for investment for speculating purposes or a currency.

These are all things we've already addressed, and if he takes the time to delve further he will find those answers too. And slowly millionaire and billionaire investors like Marks who will lose money in the upcoming stock market crash will seek alpha (and further diversification) into crypto. Why wouldn't they? Because bitcoin is a bubble? I've heard that since $300. After bitcoin goes to $10,000 will it still be a bubble, or will people realize that it isn't really bitcoin appreciating - it is all the other fiat falling spectacularly in value relative to the best alternative currency ever invented.